Story of Nigeria's Fastest Growing Billionaire

Abdul Samad Isyaku Rabiu was born on the 4th of January 1960, his father is Khalifah Isyaku Rabiu one of the top industrialists in Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Though now late, his father was an entrepreneur who got his wealth through sales of commodities and those business strides influenced him greatly, which is one of the reasons he is the second richest man in Nigeria currently.

He was born in Kano State and had his childhood there, Abdul Samad Rabiu had his basic education in Kano state before proceeding to the United States to bag a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics at the Capital University in Colombus, Ohio, USA before he later returned to Nigeria.

At age 24 Rabiu returned to Nigeria to handle his family business when his father got detained by General Muhammadu Buhari for allegedly not paying import duties of rice he imports from abroad.

Abdul Samad Rabiu isn’t the only child of his father as he has 42 siblings who are also doing well in their respective businesses. Some of the popular siblings of Abdul Samad Rabiu are Nafiu Rabiu and Rabiu Rabiu who happen to be the chairman of IRS Airlines.

From then till this moment Rabiu has achieved a lot, he is the founder and Chairman of BUA Group, a Nigerian conglomerate that has various companies under it, the group is into infrastructure, agriculture, logistics, manufacturing, port operations, and real estate. Aside from the mentioned Abdul Samad Rabiu is also the current Chairman of the Nigerian Bank of Industry.

With the gathered experience he had while handling his father’s business he was able to start up his own business in 1988 named BUA International Limited and through the years this company has grown into a conglomerate. 

BUA International Limited was into importation of rice, edible oil, flour, steel, and iron, in 1990 Delta Steel Company which is owned by the government had a contract with BUA with the agreement set on BUA supplying raw materials in exchange for finished products and this fetched BUA a huge income which was then used to start manufacturing and also expand in the importation of other products. The company started construction of multiple rolling mills, production of billets and many more.

Following a massive success in the company, BUA acquired Nigerian Oil Mills Limited which was the largest edible oil processing company in Nigeria, later on, the company started building flour-milling plants in Kano state and Lagos state, it also commissioned the second-largest sugar refinery in Sub-Saharan Africa.

That wasn’t enough as the company also took a move to start a cement plant in Edo State worth $900 million. Now BUA boasts of the following subsidiaries; BUA Oils, BUA Ports & Terminals, BUA Sugar, BUA Cement, and also BUA Estates.

His Net Worth 

Abdul Samad Rabiu's net worth is currently estimated at $7.2 billion, his earnings are attributed to income from his various companies and shares. He sees a rise in his worth from $1.9 billion to $7.2 billion after the listing of BUA Foods on the Nigerian Stock Exchange on the 5th of January 2022.

Between 2019 and now, he has overtaken the likes of Mike Adenuga, Folorunsho Alakija and Femi Otedola to emerge as the Billionaire who's next to Dangote.

>